Meta is opening up its Horizon Worlds social VR platform to teenagers aged 13–17 in the US and Canada, with additional safety features in place.

Teen profiles will be private by default. Meta will also not be displaying any adults unknown to teen players in the “people you might know” tab and restricting access to worlds with mature content. In addition, Meta has expanded its VR parental supervision tools, with voices of strangers on the platform turned into unintelligible sounds for teens who use the platform. Additionally, the voices of the teens will also be made unintelligible to strangers so they can't be heard by them.

Analyst QuickTake: The news follows a leaked company memo in February 2023 , revealing Meta’s plans to open up the platform to teens. Although the company has reportedly sold 20 million Quest headsets as of March 2023 , Horizon Worlds is estimated to have a low user retention rate of about 10%, with expanded teen access to the platform aiming to solve this. However, the plan had faced criticism from children’s rights activists given potential safety concerns.